


Sweet and Undefeated

by impilii



Category: Hercules (1997)
Genre: Aphrodisiacs, Bad Guys Made Them Do It, Depowered Victim, F/M, Humiliation, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Overstimulation, Unwilling Arousal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-05-28 06:56:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19388857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impilii/pseuds/impilii
Summary: Throwing monsters at Hercules is a proven waste of time. Hades comes up with a different kind of plan to keep him out of the fight.





	Sweet and Undefeated

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pseudomorph](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pseudomorph/gifts).



> For pseudomorph: I was so glad to see your prompts, and I really hope you enjoy this fic!

Hercules’ strength drains from him as smoothly as water running into a gutter. It reminds him, peculiarly, of a dream he used to have of falling from a great height toward a dark and unknown place. The rough grip Hades has on his hand grows tighter by the second. Everything is suddenly heavy—the cape on his shoulders, the sandals on his feet. Even the air feels harder to breathe. 

He falls to one knee, focuses through the spinning feeling. “Now let Meg go.”

Even Hades’ shrug is full of triumph. “Sure. A deal’s a deal. Oh, and you’re going to love this.” He snaps and Meg stumbles free, coughing. Hercules tries to rush over to her but his legs spasm in muscle cramps and he collapses. Hades just keeps talking in the same breezy tone. “Meg, babe, you reeled him in, now you’re off the hook. Take a bow, drink it in.”

Hercules shakes his muzzy head. “What are you talking about?”

“Sheesh. You’re not exactly putting the ‘eureka’ in Euripides, are you?” Hades looms over him and pets his face with spindle sharp fingers. “I mean that Meg, our lovely little actress, was working for me the whole time.”

It can’t be true. Meg is amazing and smart and wonderful and Hades has got to be lying, he just has to be. He pulls away from Hades to meet Meg’s eyes, but only finds tears rolling down Meg’s face. 

“It wasn’t like that! I said I wouldn’t go through with it—I never meant for this to—” A curtain of hair hides her face as she hangs her head. “I’m so sorry.”

“No,” he says in denial, but it all starts to make sense. The way they met, how she talked about other people; she’s been in trouble this whole time, and he never even knew it. 

“Well this is primo melodrama.” Hades’ hair flares a little as he gestures between them. “Beautiful damsel, gullible hunk. All we need is a little death, a little sex and maybe a hostile takeover and badaboom we’ve got ourselves a hit.”

“You got what you wanted.” Hercules clenches his jaw as he struggles to his feet. Meg’s still frozen at the side of the stadium, but he tries to convey his meaning with his eyes. _Get out of here while you still can_. He turns to face Hades fully. “Why don’t you just go already?”

“Well, it turns out that this was _way_ easier than I thought, Wonderbrain.” Hades’ sharp teeth gleam. “And now I’ve got a little time to kill.” 

The menace in his smile has Hercules bracing for a fight, but Hades just puts an arm around his shoulders.

“Nice night for a stroll, isn’t it?” 

“I’m not stupid.” Hercules ducks away, still a little unsteady. “You want to hurt me, kill me? Just do whatever you’re going to do and get it over with.” 

“Herc, I’m hurt. Where is this bad attitude coming from? When have I ever done anything to you?” Hades tsks at him. “You know, you’re looking a little queasy. Why don’t you sit down?” 

Hades launches a weight at him. Hercules reaches to catch it—he’s done it a thousand times.

The next thing he knows, he’s pinned on the stadium floor gasping for breath. 

“Need a drink?” Hades materializes a flask from his sleeve that shines with an eerie red light. Before Hercules can refuse, the bottle is at his lips, a hand wrapped around his neck, forcing him to drink. He coughs and splutters. It smells like flowers but it burns in his mouth and throat, a prickling sensation all the way down. He’s starting to sweat, though he’s not sure if it’s the potion or the effort of squirming out from under the barbell. 

He crawls away and tries to retch. The cracked dirt sways under him, but the potion stays put.

Hades laughs behind him, nasty. “Just a little something I cooked up to keep you occupied. You know, you really should have your agent around during contract negotiations. You left a whole lot of stuff on the table.”

Hercules hunches over with a moan as the heat keeps spreading. He crawls a little farther, trying to put distance between him and Hades, but his limbs won’t cooperate. His arms and legs are heavy and so is his cock, rising rapidly between his legs. 

A smoky tendril curls around one ankle, then his wrist. His sluggish resistance carves a furrow through the dirt as Hades yanks him backward. If he can get his balance, he thinks, enough for one good punch, that might give him a chance to get free. Or maybe he can call Pegasus—where is Pegasus?—

He is dropped right in front of Hades and his tunic is puddled around his ankles before he even notices that Hades’ hands are at the fasteners. He claps his hands over his erect cock, then tries to fold in on himself to cover up as much as possible. 

He’s never been this naked in front of anyone before. 

“You’re not _shy_ , are you, Wonderboy?” Hades forces him up. He’s more powerless than he’s ever been in his life, all his thrashing useless against the god’s magic. “I want to see those famous pecs.”

For an instant he manages to turn away, but there Hades is, right in front of him again. Cruel nails pinch his nipples and twist. He jerks and so does his cock, shielded beneath his palms.

“Huh, I think they might actually be better on the action figure.” Hades fondles his muscles like a horse trader feeling up stock. 

He unclutches one hand to bat Hades away, but his arm passes through mist. 

Hades grins right in his face. “Did you think that was going to work?” 

The pinching redoubles with vengeance, sensation lancing straight to his cock and three seconds later Hercules is shooting into his hand harder than he’s ever come before in his life. 

Shame floods through him, but the arousal doesn’t abate at all.

“You enjoyed that,” Hades says. He wraps his hands tight around Hercules’ wrists and pulls them up to eye level. In the low light, the droplets of come on his fingers glisten mockingly. As Hades pulls him back against his body, Hercules tries to headbutt him. He meets resistance for the briefest moment before it melts away, less effective than punching the rain. 

“What did you do to me?” 

Hades’ chin, solid again, digs into his shoulder and his robes have a scratchy, damp chill. Uncomfortable as it is, every point of contact sends sparks flying across Hercules’ skin. “See, I knew you were a scrappy little fellow, so I thought I’d take out an insurance policy. While I’m executing _my_ uprising, you’ll have your own _uprising_ to deal with.” 

Hades’ hand closes around Hercules’ erection. His forearms are massive, locking him in place as the god starts to run his fingers up and down Hercules’ cock. Hercules feels drunk on sensation. His body likes it, but he doesn’t want any part of it, the first person to touch him to be someone who hates him, who's only doing it to try to make him feel small.

Another furious burst of struggle only manages to get him pinned tighter. 

He’s not even sure it feels good—Hades’ nails are sharp and his skin is leathery and he’s not being gentle at all—but every touch sends a wildfire roaring through his veins. It’s a thousand times more intense than his own furtive explorations have ever been. If normal sex is even a fraction of this, Hercules gets why everyone is so obsessed. 

He comes, and comes again, Hades biting his neck with sharp teeth. 

“That’s three,” Hades gloats. He shows no signs of stopping. 

“No, no more,” Hercules tries to put conviction into his voice, but he knows it’s undermined by the way he’s pushing back into Hades’ body, eyes clenched shut, head thrown back in a futile attempt to escape the reality of the situation. 

“Wonderboy, you are delightful.” Something creeps down his arms, enveloping his torso in static shocks. He opens his eyes to see himself bathed in blue fire, erection shamefully obvious in Hades’ hand. 

“Stop,” he breathes raggedly. “Just stop.”

“Look, I get it: I’ve been a little rough on you, you’re feeling a little tender, it’s getting a little samey-samey.” Hades squeezes his cock. It chafes like getting pressed against a mountain by a monster. “You’d like a break from this.” 

Hercules nods, though he’s not sure he should. His hair is plastered to the back of his neck, sticky with either sweat or blood. His legs are shaking uncontrollably and his arms are exhausted from his fruitless struggles. He doesn’t think he can endure this much longer. 

“Well, alright,” Hades’ low whisper in his ear turns suddenly booming. “Meg, dollface, you’re up.” 

“No!” Hercules snaps his head up. His eyes blur as he looks for Meg and finds her—safe for the moment on the other side of the stadium, face pale and fists clenched—but why doesn’t she just _leave_? “You promised you wouldn’t hurt her!” he protests. 

“Excuse me, am I hurting you?” Hades asks. “I’m pretty sure you’ve never had a better time in your life, and I’ve got the evidence to prove it.” Hades runs his hands down Hercules’ come-stained inner thighs and yanks them apart.

Hercules tries to pull his legs back together. Cold fire prickles at the back of his neck. “Don’t touch her. I—I’ll do whatever you want.”

“Whatever I want? What if I want a little more active participation from you, mister orgasmic?”

Hercules doesn’t know for certain what ‘active participation’ means. He doesn't have a good feeling about it, but he thinks about Hades treating Meg like this and he knows what his answer has to be. 

“Alright.”

“First things first, wonderbrat, you’ve got to stop acting like I’m torturing you. I’ve given you more pleasure in the last half hour than most guys see in a lifetime.” Hades lifts him by the throat. “So say thank you.” 

Hercules struggles against the constriction, toes barely touching the ground. He delays for a moment, not sure he can bear the humiliation, but the pressure on his throat grows stronger, and Hades turns his head to look at Meg.

“Thank you,” he coughs out. 

“That's better.” Hades drops him, but at least he manages to stay on his feet this time. 

With a flick of his fingers, Hades has him on the end of a leash of smoke. He casts an assessing gaze over the stadium, then runs his eyes up Hercules’ body. 

“I think I want a better look at some of this _equipment_.” Humiliation rises higher as Hades pulls him over to the pommel horse by the neck. A large hand strokes the hair out of his eyes, lingering around the curl of his ear. It makes him shudder in a different way from all the other touches, a gentle parody of something he might actually want. 

Then Hades kicks his legs open. “Bend over.”

Hercules doesn’t resist, though every instinct is screaming that he should. He bends until his face is pressed against the leather. The evening air is cold on his skin. It feels like it’s crawling all over him, down his chest, up his thighs, all around his still throbbing dick. He shudders.

Hades kneads the muscles of his ass. “Now this is definitely better than the one on the action figure,” he crows, and lays a few hard slaps on each cheek.

The potion is still thrumming through his veins. Each slap sends a wave of electricity rushing through his body. A moan escapes him and Hercules bites his lip in order to stay silent. 

“Ah, ah, ah.” Hades wags a finger in front of his face. “We just established you were going to be more appreciative. So what do you say?”

“Thank you.” Hercules grits through his teeth.

“Ask me for more.” Hades’ voice goes low and breathy. “Say please.”

“More.” Hercules bites out. “Please.”

Hades hits him a few more times, almost lazily. When fingers slide between his asscheeks and pull them apart, Hercules jumps. If naked is what he was feeling before, he doesn't even know what to call the way he feels now. 

“That’s a picture so pretty they should put it on a vase.” Hades says, scrunching his hands in Hercules’ flesh. “Hold yourself open, just like this.” 

Hercules swallows his pride and puts his hands where Hades tells him. He tries to brace himself for what he knows must be coming next, the stinging strikes against his tenderest parts, his asshole and his vulnerable balls hanging below. 

Instead he’s startled by the sensation of something wet, immediately followed by a firm intrusion. Those are Hades’ fingers, he realizes, _inside_ him, rubbing against something that’s turning his knees into honey. His heart is beating a million times a minute and blood is roaring through his ears, like the sound of a screaming crowd.

Gods, a crowd. He imagines what a spectacle he must make, how ashamed of him everyone would be if they could see this. He didn’t have a choice, he thinks against the imagined disappointment, the insults, the people who are going to get hurt in whatever Hades has planned. But Meg—he didn’t have a choice. 

He doesn't have a choice. His body is being played like an instrument. Everything in him is building toward the crescendo of another orgasm when Hades suddenly stops and pulls his fingers back until they’re just barely prying him open. Hercules digs his nails into his own flesh and shifts his weight from foot to foot as Hades flicks and tugs at the rim of his hole. 

“Please,” he begs and doesn’t even know what for.

“You asked for it.” Hades’ hands move away from his aching hole. Hercules only has a second of relief before something large and blunt presses against him and in, cold, slippery and hard like stone. It brushes against that spot and pushes deeper, where Hercules is sure it isn’t meant to go. 

It’s not until Hades’ hips come to rest against his ass that he realizes it’s Hades’ cock buried deep inside him. He thrashes and flails his fists behind him, but Hades is immoveable.

“For a moment there you were behaving so well.” Hades sighs. Smoke wraps around his wrists, his elbows and upper arms, pulling tight behind him. 

With no leverage, no strength, all Hercules can do is lie there as Hades fucks him. Has he ever been this close to the pommel horse? He’s done a hundred thousand exercises on it, but he’s never noticed the way the stitching puckers under the handle or how strongly it smells of leather and sweat. His face squeaks against the leather as Hades pumps in and out. Hercules tries to focus on that and the pain in his shoulders and ignore everything else. But each time Hades’ cock drags against that spot inside him, his own jumps in response. 

Pressure on his bound arms forces him up. The angle sheathes Hades even deeper inside than before and it feels like being speared. “Why is it that I always end up doing all the work?” Hades complains, breath sulfurous on Hercules’ cheek. 

Hercules is suddenly clenching around nothing, with nothing holding him up. His legs fold under and his whole body vibrates like a plucked lyre in desperate need of a musician’s steady fingers. Hades rematerializes in front of him, lounging on the leather seat like it’s a throne, and Hercules buries his face in the god’s robes to stop himself from begging to be touched again, to be filled.

He realizes belatedly that he’s whimpering, small noises of distress he can’t figure out how to stop.

“How sweet.” Hades’ nails curl under his chin. “Pathetic, but sweet.” 

Hercules wants to say something, snap back, disagree, but his mouth is dry and his words are scrambled and the more he lets his head fall into Hades’ hand, the more the desperation is soothed. 

He feels like the world is spinning around him again, and then he realizes it’s actually spinning—or he is, as Hades floats him up into the air and brings him down so his knees are planted on either side of Hades. Hades’ cock taps at his entrance. His hips rock back without his conscious assent, desperate for relief. When he looks up, Meg is staring straight at him.

Shame freezes him from the inside out, this time almost enough to blunt the edge of desire.

“Ride me.” Hades grips his hips and whispers in his ear. “Or she gets it.” 

* * * * *

Meg can hardly watch, can hardly turn away. There’s anguish on Hercules’ face, in the lines of his quivering limbs as he jerks up and down uncertainly. His cheeks are flushed, his breathing strained, muscles thrown into sharp relief by the low light. Every single part of him is perfect. She disgusts herself, how gorgeous she finds it.

She can see Hades’ lips moving. She doesn’t want to know what he’s saying, has already heard enough venomous words she wishes she could forget, but he’s talking loud enough for her now too, taking advantage of the audience. 

“You know, when this hero thing doesn’t work out, you’ve still got options. I think the people of Thebes would pay good money to watch you get fucked even more stupid.”

Hercules makes a punched out noise as Hades pulls him all the way down, then forces him back up.

“Whaddaya think, Nutmeg?” Hades smirks at her and makes Hercules pause at the very tip of his cock. His thighs, lightly dusted with hair, flex and strain as Hades keeps him on display. “Does Wonderbuns here have the _ass_ ets for it?” 

“Don’t touch her.” Hercules can barely force the words out past the chokehold of smoke around his neck, still trying to rescue her, the sap. His chest is forced into a cruel arch by the way his arms are bound behind him. His flushed cock curves straight up from a neat thatch of curls between his powerful legs. He looks like a depraved statue whose sculptor didn’t understand the limits of the human spine.

Hades lands a smack on his ass and chuckles. Hercules’ whole body ripples. “ _Re_ lax, loverboy! No one’s getting fucked who didn’t agree to it.”

He turns to her. “Well?”

“You’re sick.” Her voice comes out throaty.

“And you’re free, babe.” A conspiratorial coil of smoke curls around her shoulders. “If you didn’t want to be here watching, you wouldn’t be.” 

She shakes her head, but her feet bring her closer. Maybe there’s something she can do to help. A cynical voice rears its head. Maybe she just wants to get a closer look. 

“Look, if you don’t want a turn, I’ll let my other minions take a shot next. But you landed the guy, and I’ve got him all laid out for you. Isn’t this what you’ve always wanted?” He wraps his hand in Hercules’ hair and tugs his head back even farther. “A guy who can’t leave?” 

Hercules, shame written all over his face, closes his eyes. She could walk away—should, maybe. Hades’ imps are sadistic and devious, but they probably won’t kill him. Maybe he deserves it. How could he be so stupid? How could he have such rotten judgment, to make a deal with a devil without thinking twice about it, without considering what he was giving up, without even knowing if the person he was doing it for was worth a single sip of his devotion.

His glistening chest heaves as she runs her nails from his collarbones to his abs. Realization dawns slowly on his face. His red-bitten lips gape open and she wants to slap the dumbstruck look right off of him. This is how people are, she wants to scream. You give and you give and you give and the whole rest of the world just takes and takes until it drops you in the dust for someone new. 

“Yeah,” she answers Hades’s question. “It is.”

She lets her hand drift lower, wraps it around that thick, gorgeous cock. 

Hercules starts to cry.

And fuck, his tears are thrilling. 

Hades clearly thinks so too. “Oh yeah,” he groans and grinds up into Hercules’ body. Hercules sobs as Hades pulls his legs up and folds him in half. His cock is bouncing against his muscled stomach, balls drawn up tight. Hades’ cock is repulsive, more reptilian than human, and the contrast as it flashes between Hercules’ golden thighs is obscene. 

A dark blue liquid starts to ooze out from where they’re joined. A sick sense of curiosity urges Meg on—what does the come of the Lord of the Underworld feel like?—Hercules hole twitches as she follows the trail up his thigh and rubs her finger around the stretched skin at his entrance. It’s the strangest thing she’s ever felt—smooth but sticky, hot and cold, slightly stinging, like a static shock that goes on forever. Imagining it inside makes her skin crawl. 

Hercules’ mouth is shaping words that his sobs don’t leave enough air to voice. Meg reads _please_ and _Meg_ and _no_ and after that she doesn’t let herself look. 

“You’re a girl who goes after what she wants,” Hades says, fondly condescending in the aftermath of his orgasm. “Even when you were a romantic little fool. I’ve always liked that about you.” 

“What I want, is not to have to share,” she says, wiping her hand off on her skirt and ignoring the rest of what Hades says. “You said you were going to lay him out for me.”

Hades smirks, withdraws, throws Hercules hard onto the dirt. He lies there unmoving as chains and weights fly over from a haphazard pile and pin his limbs down. Belatedly he tries to pull his legs together, but he can’t shift them at all. Meg plants a foot on one of the smaller weights to see if she has any leverage to roll it off him. It doesn’t move even an iota.

“Go to town,” Hades says. He reclines against a column of nothing and crosses his arms.

She crosses hers. “I don’t love an audience.” 

“What, me?” Hades presses a hand to his heart. “You won’t even know I’m here.” 

They stand there deadlocked.

On the ground, Hercules starts to convulse, hips and back arching off the sand. Hades examines his nails. “If you’re not going to do something about that, I can still call the little minions. I’m sure they’ll have fun.” 

Meg has seen what passes for fun in Pain and Panic’s books. Hercules moans like he’s dying. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?” she asks. “I’m gonna take my time.”

Hades gestures her on imperiously. “I want to see that you’ve got it all in hand.”

“And then you’ll leave,” she negotiates.

“And then I’ll leave,” he agrees. 

Meg steps up Hercules body and sits on his lap, pressing her hands down on his shoulders. Just a touch is enough to calm the potion-induced convulsions. He blinks dopily, then starts to press up against her as if her touch contained the secrets of the universe. She sweeps her hands down his chest and watches as his muscles relax underneath her hands, shiver where she isn’t touching. 

She feels powerful.

It makes her wet. She hikes up her dress and grinds down against him, skin on skin. It’s been a long time since she had more than her own hand to work with. His moan as she rubs her tingling clit against his cock is hoarse. She keeps going, teasing herself on the tip of his cock, then sinking down on his nice thick length. Beneath her, he gives a full body flinch, but it doesn’t matter. He’s not going anywhere.

She chases her own pleasure, takes what she wants, how she wants it. She’s never had sex like this before.

Every little action proves her control. Where she touches, he shivers; where she doesn't touch, he yearns. She’s horrible for loving it, and yet. She grinds down against him, relishing the fullness. It’s like his cock was perfectly designed to please her, pressing against all the right spots and none of the wrong ones.

His bottom lip is caught between his teeth, pink and lovely. She slows down a little, bending her face close to his. He closes his eyes and turns his head away, like he’s pretending he’s somewhere else. A faint sheen of tears reflects off his cheek. She buries her face in his neck, and pretends that he’s looking at her like he did earlier in the evening, when he kissed her on the cheek and gave her the flower. 

“Isn’t this nice? The lovebirds, together.” Hades drips poison. “Is it everything you ever dreamed?”

And fuck, it’s not, it’s really not. But in some ways it’s so so close, and that’s what makes Meg shatter into orgasm. She can feel herself clenching on Hercules’ cock and it sets him off too, his eyes rolling up into his head. 

Hades leers and claps the entire time. 

“I thought you were heading off to your Titanic tea party,” she snaps, panting, still grinding on Hercules’ cock. 

He flames orange for a moment. “You’re my favorite, but you better mind your manners,” he tuts, wrapping a finger in a curl of her hair. “Nothing’s gonna keep you safe once Wonderboy’s deal is up.”

A breath catches in her throat. Wonderboy’s deal—that he’d give up his powers as long as Hades didn’t hurt her—no, that wasn’t quite right, was it. She racks her brains for the answer flitting at the edge of her consciousness. 

He reaches down to pinch Hercules’ chin, who barely manages a half-hearted glare. “Now that you’ve got this pinned down, I gotta catch my own ride. Give me a kiss for the road, huh?” His laughter fades into the distance as he takes off in his bat-winged chariot.

A kiss. There it is. “When I kiss you, bite me, hard,” she says softly. 

Hercules’ face wrinkles in defiance. He pulls against the restraints, bucks under her, but that’s a non-starter. 

“Just do it!” she hisses, grabbing the back of his head and pressing her lips hard against his. He stays frozen for the longest time. She moves her lips against his, little by little, and finally his lips pull back. His teeth scrape gently across her lip, before turning vicious. A drop of blood mingles in the heat between their mouths, and then another.

Nothing happens. 

Nothing happens and nothing happens and nothing happens until finally, the air around them charges with energy. Saturation returns to Hercules’ washed-out face. His cock softens inside her. The chains pinning down his hands go flying.

For a brief moment, her satisfaction is interrupted by an animal sort of fear as he shifts beneath her, a newly awakened giant, but he lifts her off him gently, so gently. He scrambles away and curls in on himself, fruitlessly scrubbing at his skin with bare hands.

She kneels down across from him, unpinning a layer of her skirt. 

“What? What—” Hercules’ voice cracks.

“Hades’ deal. He didn’t promise not to hurt me—he promised I wouldn’t get hurt.”

Hercules raises a hand to her bleeding lip, hovering just a hairsbreadth from touching her. “So that—”

“Broke it. You got your strength back. And burned out whatever he gave you, I guess.” His fingers are close enough to kiss. She just hands him the fabric.

“But you—And then— I—I don’t—”

“Are you always this articulate?” she teases softly. Hercules shrinks back like she’d struck him. Meg wraps her arms around herself and swallows the lump in her throat. “If you hurry, you can still stop Hades.” 

“Stop him?” Hercules makes an ugly sound that doesn’t belong in his throat and waves a hand at himself. “Like I stopped him before? Like you did, except not until you got what you—what you—”

“I only wanted to help,” she says, and wishes that was the whole truth. “I wouldn’t have done it if I thought there was any other way. I'm sorry.”

He stares at her for a long moment, then turns away and limps over to pick up his tunic. He’s gorgeous from the back as well, is her first thought. She wants to slap herself.

There’s got to be something she can do to help, to make it up somehow, to—the horse, the horsefly has to be around here somewhere. She finds him tied up in the stable and nearly gets a hoof to the head for her troubles. “Wonderboy needs you,” she snaps. “So let me get you out of here.” 

Hercules is clothed by the time they return. Pegasus barrels him over, nickering in dismay, but he looks as fit for action as ever. Except for the lost expression on his face, she wouldn't even know anything had happened. 

"Do you think I can do it?"

"Wonderboy, if anyone can, it's you." It comes out more sardonic than she means it, and Meg wishes she could snatch the words from the air.

He shakes his head, face shuttering, and leaps on Pegasus' back. 

She watches them past the point when they’re just an invisible speck against the storm clouds swirling round Olympus. 

“Good luck, Hercules,” she murmurs.

* * * * *

When the sky’s returned to a normal shade of blue and the city’s stopped collapsing around her, Meg goes looking for Hercules. 

She finds him sitting on a broken column, wrapped in his blue cape, sword and sandals lying on the ground. He doesn’t look at her as she takes a seat next to him.

“I saw the light show,” she blurts before she can think of anything better, still stepping it. “Was that you?”

“Yeah.” He sighs into his folded arms. 

"I knew you would do it. I meant that, truly." 

Hercules shrugs “Well, me and Pegasus, we stopped Hades and destroyed the Titans and saved Olympus and it’s still not good enough. I’m still not a true hero.” He drums his heels against the column, faster and faster. A crack starts to splinter through it. “Maybe there’s just something wrong with me. Maybe I _am_ a freak—”

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Meg says fiercely. 

He doesn’t look up, but his feet still. His voice goes quiet. “Or maybe I’m just not—clean enough. You should have seen it up there, everything gold and gleaming. I don’t know if I could ever belong there.” He pauses again, but Meg can tell he’s not done. 

“And you know what the stupidest thing is? That’s been my whole goal for basically forever, and it’s not even what I’m most upset about. I can’t stop thinking about how I always thought, I mean, I hoped that—that my first kiss would be with someone who I loved. Who loved me.” 

The last few words are rushed and muffled by the crook of his arm, but they still hit Meg like an arrow to the heart. 

“Sometimes people do crazy things when they’re in love,” she says. “Crazy, stupid, terrible things.” 

Hercules peeks at her with wide, wet eyes. “I—I don’t even really know who you are. You’ve lied to me from the moment we met.”

She isn’t sure that what she has to say next will be any better, but something pushes her onward. “The name’s Megara. I haven’t ever had many friends and I’ve been mixed up with a bad crowd recently and—well, long story short, I met an amazing guy who convinced me to ditch all that. He got pretty badly hurt because of me, but he might just be the best person I know. He calls me Meg.” 

She holds out her hand. 

For a long time.

“Meg," he says, and takes her hand. "I’m Hercules." Then he starts to glow.


End file.
